Denver would fire most police officers who break the law, “depart from the truth” during investigations, commit sexual misconduct or improperly use force when they kill a suspect, under a draft proposal to overhaul Denver’s discipline system for police.

The proposal from Denver’s safety manager, Al LaCabe, who oversees the Police Department, would be a big shift in how the city disciplines officers.

Officers who have committed those offenses in the past have been able to keep their jobs under the current “comparative discipline” system, which relies on past discipline decisions to guide how misconduct is handled now.

Efforts to change the department’s system of comparative discipline have been proposed and failed to find consensus at least six other times. LaCabe’s new proposal met immediate resistance Monday from the police union, but he remains determined to make the change.

“Discipline for police has to reflect the values and priorities of the department, which also must reflect the values and priorities of the whole external culture,” LaCabe said in a recent interview.

He argues that relying on past cases to achieve consistency is flawed. Past administrations dealt with different expectations from the public, he said, and sometimes those past decisions weren’t well thought out.

“The best way is to notify an officer before an event happens as to what will be the likely penalty,” LaCabe said.

Marc Colin, a lawyer who handles discipline appeals for police officers, said the union’s main objections deal with “presumptive termination” for officers found to have broken the law in certain categories. Currently, officers who plead guilty to certain misdemeanors keep their jobs.

Colin said officers charged with felonies are immediately suspended without pay, and many officers plead their cases down to misdemeanors to avoid the economic hardship of fighting their cases in court.

“This draft report tries to eliminate the underlying facts of a case as relevant to a disciplinary action,” Colin said. “Often an officer says, ‘I’ll take a petty-offense plea and get a deferred (prosecution).”‘

LaCabe said the proposed overhaul would take months to implement as the Denver Civil Service Commission would have to adopt new rules. He hopes to have the new plan up and running by February.

A committee, which LaCabe impaneled last year to review police discipline, will digest the proposal when LaCabe gets back from vacation next month.

The city’s charter dictates that the Civil Service Commission, in reviewing an appeal of a disciplinary decision, must determine whether the punishment is “consistent with discipline received by other members of the department under similar circumstances.”

Others have argued that a change to the comparative discipline would require a change to the charter and voter approval. But LaCabe believes he can legally make the change simply by tweaking the commission’s rules.

A clash could end up in court, some observers say.

“If they try to impose a discipline matrix that is not legal or fair, we will fight it to the highest court we can go,” said Nick Rogers, vice president of the Denver Police Protective Association.

An analysis of the Police Department’s discipline database shows 11,553 misconduct allegations were investigated from January 1997 through mid-September 2006. Of those, 2,199 cases, involving 901 officers, were sustained, or 19 percent.

The city fired 65 of the officers during that time and demoted two. Of those investigated, 52 had sustained law violations, meaning they committed crimes, and 10 of those officers were fired.

Putting the numbers into perspective is difficult. Denver’s police force has about 1,400 officers, but it’s unknown how many officers retired or were hired during the 10-year period.

Another 25 officers remained on the force from January 1997 through September 2006 despite “departing from the truth.”

In some police departments, failing to tell the truth can lead to immediate dismissal because it can be used by defense lawyers in criminal cases to challenge an officer’s court testimony.

Under the new proposal, presumptive discipline would be adopted for certain offenses. Mitigating factors, including an officer’s overall performance, would come into play. Internal-

affairs investigators and department supervisors also would have established guidelines on what type of evidence to weigh when they consider allegations of misconduct.

The proposal also calls for the formation of a committee to continually update discipline standards at the Police Department.

Some veteran officers at the department are chafing at the proposed “sexual misconduct” provision. LaCabe wants to fire officers who engage in violations, such as consensual sex in a squad car.

But police veterans argue that an officer who leaves his post to have sex at his girlfriend’s home isn’t committing as egregious an offense as an officer who coerces a suspect into sex.

Christopher N. Osher is a reporter on the investigation team at The Denver Post who has covered law enforcement, judicial and regulatory issues for the news organization. He also has reported from war zones in Africa.